


Believe that you can change, that you're not stuck in vain

by thesaddestboner



Series: in the shadows [7]
Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Angst, Detroit Tigers, F/M, Gen, Gender or Sex Swap, M/M, Not!Fic, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 21:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesaddestboner/pseuds/thesaddestboner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>girl!Porcello 'verse. Rick changes back. Unfinished and for good reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Believe that you can change, that you're not stuck in vain

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place the following season after the events in [Pull me out from inside](http://archiveofourown.org/works/297953), I guess. Originally started this for [](http://rpf_big_bang.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://rpf_big_bang.livejournal.com/)**rpf_big_bang** but couldn’t get anywhere with it. 
> 
> I still plan on going back to this 'verse at some point, but Rick isn't changing back into a dude.
> 
> Title from "Tonite Reprise," by the Smashing Pumpkins.
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/thesaddestboner) and [tumblr](http://saddestboner.tumblr.com).

Rick wakes up to the sun on his face, warm and pleasant. It kind of reminds him of an afternoon game at Comerica Park, with the sun at its highest point in the sky, shadows strewn about the infield like ghosts. He closes his eyes again and idles in bed for a few long moments, clinging stubbornly to sleep for a little while longer, as Max snores rhythmically beside him.

Rick turns and rubs his cheek against Max’s shoulder. Max mumbles sleepily and shifts next to him, one of his hands reaching out and ending up tangled in Rick’s hair.

“G’morning,” Max mumbles, letting Rick’s hair slip from his fingers. He draws his arm back slowly, fingertips trailing down the back of Rick’s neck.

Rick rolls over and tucks his head against Max’s side. Max’s hand drifts down his bare arm, to the crook of his elbow. “Good morning,” Rick whispers back.

Max cups a hand around Rick’s bent elbow; he feels Max’s fingers fan out against his skin. “I’m leaving today,” Max says into his hair.

Rick lifts his head, knocking Max in the chin. “Huh? Where?”

Max opens an eye—the blue one—and regards him groggily. “Lakeland. Spring Training, remember?” He laughs, a pleased, deep rumble in his chest.

Rick rubs his fists into bleary eyes, still gritted over with sleep. “Oh, right. Forgot. Sorry.”

Max slides his hand around Rick’s wrist and tugs him back down, pulling him against his side. “You could come too, you know. You did last year,” he says, drumming his thumb on the curve of Rick’s hipbone.

Rick bats his hand away. “I guess. It was hard, though.”

“I know.” Max presses his mouth briefly, firmly against the top of Rick’s head before pulling back.

“Ryan’s gone,” Rick adds. He’s not sure why he supplies that; they haven’t talked much about Ryan since the trade that sent him to the Washington Nationals. It’s been easier that way, to just leave it alone.

Max goes still. “Yeah?”

“It’s just—everything’s different now, kinda,” Rick says, reaching up, tracing loopy figure eights on the front of Max’s threadbare Mizzou Tigers t-shirt. “It’s all changed.”

“It’s okay, I didn’t mean to push. But if you change your mind . . .” Max trails off.

“I know,” Rick says. “I’ll call you. I’ll book the first flight out of here.” 

_Here_ was Max’s condo in Arizona, the place he lives in during the offseason. All the gossipy stories the _News_ and _Freep_ ran in the offseason referred to him as “Erica Dente, Scherzer’s live-in girlfriend,” as if it was a relevant bit of information. 

Rick supposes it could be worse. At least Max isn’t Verlander and Rick isn’t Kate, who get hounded by paparazzi everywhere they go.

Max pushes himself up with a weary groan. “I don’t think I’m ready for this.”

Rick pats him lightly on the stomach. “You could call in sick.”

“I’d probably get fired.” Max turns his head, grins at Rick lopsidedly.

Rick rolls his eyes. “I disappeared off the face of the planet and they still haven’t fired my ass,” he says.

Max’s smile wanes just a bit, but not completely. “Leyland loves you. He’ll wait forever if he has to,” he says, teasing gently. He pokes at Rick’s side and Rick pushes his hand away gently, suppressing a smile.

“I have a hard time imagining Leyland loving anybody,” Rick says, but Max’s words still have the ring of truth to them.

Leyland’s as crusty and old-school as they come, but he’s a sentimental guy when you really get down to it. Rick still remembers watching that awkward press conference last year, after the team got eliminated from the pennant chase, remembers Leyland breaking down and choking back tears when someone asked him what it’d been like without Rick.

Max strokes a hand down Rick’s back. After a couple minutes of that—companionable silence as Max gently rubs his back—Max coughs and says, softly, “I’m gonna miss you, you know.”

Rick looks at him and he pulls his hand away. “Are _you_ getting sentimental on me now, Scherzer?” Rick leans over and jabs him in the ribs, trying to draw a smile out of him.

“Maybe a little bit,” Max allows, squeezing his thumb and forefinger mere millimeters apart.

Rick tackles him around the midsection and they tumble back, thumping against the mattress, pillows, and tangle of bedsheets. “You’re lucky I put up with you.” Rick shoves his hands under the front of Max’s shirt and pushes it up his chest.

Max looks up at him and rests a hand over Rick’s, a thin, worn layer of cotton separating their touch. “Maybe you’re the lucky one,” he teases, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “You ever think about that?”

“Sometimes.” Rick kisses Max quickly and slides off him, settling next to him in bed.

He feels Max shift beside him, and then he slips his fingers loosely around Rick’s arm. Max draws Rick’s wrist to his mouth and he trails his lips down the soft, pale underside of his forearm. Max does this sometimes, grows quiet and serious as he kisses Rick on the wrist, knuckles, shoulder, chin as if he’s committing these parts of Rick to his memory in case he should ever lose him.

“Should probably start packing or something,” Max says, mouth moving against Rick’s skin. His breath is warm and damp, and Rick feels just the slightest edge of teeth against his wrist.

Rick pulls his fingers slowly through Max’s dark blond hair as he presses his mouth against Rick’s wrist again. “Probably.”

Max sits up again and lets Rick go. “I still think you should come too.” His hands flutter in his lap, nervous and flighty. 

“I thought you said you wouldn’t push,” Rick says.

“I know. I just—” Max stops himself short and rubs his hands through his hair with a sigh. “I just don’t know, I have a weird feeling.”

Rick hikes an eyebrow. “A weird feeling?”

“Yeah. Like . . . I don’t know.” Max sighs and flicks his eyes over Rick. “I’m gonna go pack now.”

Rick laughs. “You go do that.”

Max gets out of bed, throws open the closet doors, and drags out a large duffel bag. Rick flops back in bed and pulls the covers up to his chin. He drifts back to sleep to the sound of Max quietly packing his bag.

-

“I’m going now.”

Rick opens his eyes and stretches languidly in bed. Max’s voice had pulled him out of a shallow, fitful sleep that had been punctuated by brief, vivid waking dreams. Max hovers over him, obscured by a hazy veil of sleep which doesn’t recede quite as quickly as Rick would have liked. 

“Huh?”

“I’m leaving now, flight’s in a few.” Max drops his bag on the carpet with a soft thud and crawls into bed next to Rick. One of Max’s arms snakes around Rick’s waist and he catches Max’s hand in his. “One last chance.”

“To what,” he asks, even though he knows the answer. Rick lets go and turns until they’re face to face, eye to eye.

“To change your mind. Come with me.” Max rests a hand on Rick’s hip.

“Maybe I’ll visit for a while,” Rick concedes, feeling his walls crumble just a little bit.

“I’d like that.” Max leans in and presses his dry, warm lips against Rick’s forehead. He holds his mouth there a few beats longer than usual.

Rick closes his eyes and breathes deeply. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Max echoes, finally pulling away, “go back to bed, I’ll see you later.”

Rick feels him slip away, a trail of fingertips over his bare arm, and hears the soft hiss of the door shutting behind him.

-

When Rick wakes again, he can sense immediately that something is wrong.

The air feels charged with electricity; it’s on his skin, running through his veins, burying itself deep in his very marrow. He knows this feeling, is all too familiar with it, because he’d felt it once before, on a cold day in December.

For a second, Rick isn’t even sure where or _when_ he is. He wonders if he’s somehow ended up back in his condo in New Jersey. He half expects to hear snow pattering lightly against the windowpanes, even though he’s in the middle of the desert. Time travel’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility, considering everything else.

Rick sits up slowly and groans, trying to ignore the pounding headache that rushes to greet him. The comforter falls away, landing on the floor in a heap, and he plants his feet carefully in the carpet. 

Somehow, those feet carry him to the bathroom, but it barely feels like he’s moving at all. Rick feels odd, detached, as if his conscious thought has fled his body and is existing on some other plane. He almost feels as if he’s looking in on himself from the outside. He watches as his hand—someone else’s hand—reaches out and flicks on the light switch.

Rick settles in front of the bathroom mirror, draws his hands over his eyes and closes them, as if he can block out what he doesn’t want to see. He knows, though. Deep inside, somewhere, he knows. The world around him stills, grows so faint and quiet that the only sound he hears is his own shallow breaths.

He slowly lowers his hands and forces himself to look into the mirror.

A familiar face he hasn’t seen in a very long time stares back at him. When Rick raises his hand to touch his lips, the image in the mirror raises its hand too. Rick lets his fingertips skate lightly over his cheekbone and up into his unkempt hair. He tugs lightly, before letting go and letting his hand drop to his side. 

Rick still feels that funny sense of detachment, as if his consciousness had been slapped into someone else’s body—which was kind of funny if you really think about it. It’s like someone opened up a picture of him in Photoshop and blurred the edges; it’s still _him_ , but changed. Different. Altered. 

Rick pats a hand over his chest, reaches up and touches his Adam’s apple, then runs his fingers over five o’clock stubble. 

He knows should be grateful that he’s been given a second chance, that he’s gotten his old body, his old life back. He’ll be able to play baseball again, if anyone will have him. He can finally go home and see his family—fuck, his family probably thinks he’s dead.

Rick looks back at his reflection. The t-shirt he’d gone to bed in the night before clings to him like a second skin now, and he can see some of the stitching has popped at the seams. He reaches up and slides a hand over his throat, swallows and feels the muscles working. His own skin, this body that he’d lived with for most of his life feels so foreign to him now.

Once the shock begins to fade, panic starts to creep in. Rick’s heart clenches in his chest when his eyes fall on Max’s blue nylon shaving kit sitting there on the bathroom counter. He must have forgotten to pack it.

 _Max_.

“Shit.” Rick curls his hands into fists and presses them over his eyes. 

How the fuck is he going to tell Max? _What_ the fuck is he going to tell Max?

For a few frenzied, panicked moments, Rick considers just throwing a few essential items—Max’s “just in case” secret stash of money, some clothes of Max’s he hadn’t packed, Rick’s cache of forged IDs and papers—into a bag and bolting. 

Maybe he’d go to Canada, or finally take that trip to Mexico he’d put off for the last couple years.

Rick reaches out, presses his palms against the cool, flat surface of the mirror. His face stares back at him, eyes ringed with dark circles. He works his mouth, swallows against a growing lump in his throat. 

He lets his hands slip away, smudged fingerprints leaving streaks across the mirror’s glassy surface.

-

It hasn’t been easy living “off the grid” the last year and a half, two years. Rick had tried his best to not have to use the credit cards, licenses or papers that belonged to “Erica P. Dente,” even though Max reassured him they were impenetrable, untraceable. 

Rick hasn’t been declared dead officially, though, so he figures it could be worse. 

He sits at the kitchen table of Max’s Arizona condo, his empty duffel bag resting across his lap, as he sifts through all the falsified papers, IDs, licenses, and cards. His face—Erica’s face—stares back at him with dark, haunted eyes.

Erica Patricia Dente. December 27, 1988. Morristown, New Jersey.

Rick sweeps the documents and cards into an old cigar box he found in the back of Max’s closet and closes his eyes. He rests his head in his hands and drags his fingers through his long, unkempt hair.

He still hasn’t called or texted or emailed Max to let him know—what, that his pretend girlfriend doesn’t exist anymore? That they have to give up their version of a Grimm’s fairytale and go back to the real world? Rick drops his head into the crook of his elbow.

**Author's Note:**

> The author of this piece intends no insult, slander, or copyright infringement, and is not profiting from this work. This story is a complete work of fiction and does not necessarily reflect on the nature of the individuals featured. This is for entertainment purposes only. If you found this story while Googling your name or the names of your friends, hit the back button now.


End file.
